praying

Prayers are an important part of our bedtime routine and Bryce never lets us forget.  We normally read a bedtime story together and then he picks a book to take to bed with him.  Now before he picks his book to take to bed he always tells us we have to pray first!  He has been praying at dinner for a long time, but we just recently started saying prayers before going to bed.  At dinner he says the prayer he learned at church, "God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food, by his hands we all are fed, give us Lord our daily bread, amen". Sometimes he says his own, "Dear God, thank you for our food, amen".

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He doesn't normally get down on his knees to pray, but tonight Jason and I were laying on the floor so we put our heads down on the floor and he wanted to be like us!  Each night we ask him who he wants to pray for and he usually says me or Jason, another family member, or one of his friends.  We used to say the prayer and he would repeat it, but now he says his own prayer.  

Tonight he wanted to pray for Dada.  He prayed his normal prayer, "Dear God, thank you for Dada, amen".  When he was done he decided he wanted to pray for me too.  This time he said "God is great, God is good, let us thank him for Mama".  Jason and I both cracked up.  We thought it was hilarious he incorporated his dinner prayer into his bedtime prayer!

teacher appreciation

I just love teacher appreciation week.  Yesterday my students brought in cards with sweet messages they had written.  Today they brought in flowers and I was able to make this beautiful arrangement with the assortment of flowers.  Tomorrow our PTO is providing breakfast. 

strawberries

Today we went and picked strawberries at a local farm.  Last year we waited too late to pick and the only place that had any left wouldn't allow children in the field to pick.  This year I was on top of my game and we got all the strawberries we could ever eat!  Jason went fishing for the weekend so we asked Nana to tag along with us.

 Bryce enjoyed picking a few and eating them before they made it into his basket.

 And boys will be boys.  After he had his share of picking, he sat down and played in the dirt!

 Guess it was even too dirty for him.  He was cleaning the dirt with his tissue, hehe!

We're having strawberry pie tonight!

girl's night

I went out with the girls in my life group/small group from church this past Saturday and it was a blast!  We started the evening at Mimi's Cafe for an early dinner.  It was fun getting to know these girls in a different setting than with our husbands!

 After dinner we headed to Sweet Spot to stock up on some candy for our next stop.

With candy in tow, we finished our evening painting pottery.  I have started a dessert plate collection when I paint pottery so tonight I painted a basketball plate for Bryce.  Well I painted it orange and my friend Beth painted the rest, ha!

Melissa, Liz, me and Beth

the circus

We took Bryce to the circus on Saturday and he proved that loud noises and commotion still aren't for him.  I was really hoping he wouldn't be afraid, but within minutes of the lights going out and the music starting, he wanted to go home.  I held him tight and we were able to stay and enjoy the whole show!

 Our cute little clown.

 Enjoying a little cotton candy.  Can you tell he is scared to death?!

 Bryce and his buddies Kaleb and Chase.

 My personal favorite are the elephants.

Happy Easter

Easter fun

I have had so much fun doing some festive Easter things with Bryce.  Yesterday we dyed Easter eggs.  Bryce enjoyed dropping the color tablets in the vinegar and listening to them sizzle.  He also made sure I knew that it was stinky, ha!

 Gotta include a "cheese" picture when I can because they don't happen often anymore!

 Bryce wasn't as much a fan of coloring the eggs as he was putting stickers on them.

 He looked kind of evil showing off his "B" egg.

 We also made bird nests.  First we made the "nests" or "haystacks" with melted butterscotch chips and peanut butter and chow mein noodles.  Then we put Peeps and Robin Eggs in them.

 I bagged up the bird nests to give them away because we definitely don't need to eat them all.

 This morning we went to the Resurrection Egg Hunt at church.  I tried to get a good picture of Bryce before we left, but like I said, the "cheese" pictures don't happen often.

 He really didn't want to cooperate.

 His friend Aiden was ready to hunt eggs too!

 Bryce actually understood the concept of picking up the eggs and putting them in his basket this year.

 He would rather listen to them than rush around to get more!

After getting about 10-15 eggs and standing amongst a sea of eggs, Bryce said he was all done.  That's my boy!  He wasn't in competition for lots of eggs and he was happy with the few he chose.

 Checking out the candy he got.

it's a bird! it's a plane!

We had hoped to go to DC today to visit the National Zoo since Jason was off, but it turned out to be cold and rainy so we decided to find something to do closer to home and inside!  We headed out to the airport to the Virginia Aviation Museum.

The first thing we came to was a plane you could get in and pretend to fly.  We visited this on the way in and the way out!

 They had a couple of flight simulators that Jason and Bryce tried out.

 There were even a few hands on things that Bryce could push buttons on and watch the wings move.

 I think Jason had just as much fun as Bryce!

 Checking out all the model airplanes.

 No trip to a museum is complete without a stop by the gift shop.  Bryce picked out his very own airplane!